The 8 biggest box office flops of 2015 

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pedigree in director Paul McGuigan, and a script by Max Landis, best known for the innovative anti-superhero movie

not very good, it\'s also a bona fide box office flop in the States, bowing to a paltry opening weekend of just $2.5 million. Given its wide release across 2,797 theaters, that means it made just $883 per cinema.

And it\'s far from alone. 2015 has seen the release of high-profile flops aplenty, two of which made the top five in Box Office Mojo\'s list of the worst wide openings of all time. 

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So below, we\'ve listed the year\'s eight other most egregious box office flops. These aren\'t the lowest grossing movies of the year – rather the ones whose low takings are the most out of line with their expected performance, their budget, or their star power. 

Worldwide box office to date: $47 million (down $13 million on budget)

Looking back, it\'s hard to tell what anyone was thinking with this. Just look at that poster.

This misjudged, exhaustingly unfunny hamfest had already been roundly savaged by critics by the time it debuted, its reception marking a kind of breaking point for Johnny Depp\'s increasingly baffling career (he\'s since turned it around with an Oscar-tipped performance in

). As it turned out, almost nobody wanted to watch

Worldwide box office to date: $183 million (up $7 million on budget)

The Wachowski siblings\' nigh-on incomprehensible space opera didn\'t lack for ambition, but it did lack for an audience. It was always a high-stakes gamble to spend $176 million on such a willfully bonkers venture, although it\'s hard to feel particularly good about originality being trampled in Hollywood. This might be final proof that the Wachowskis\' vision and scope are just better suited to television.

Worldwide box office to date: $26 million (down $11 million on budget)

Cameron Crowe\'s ill-conceived Air Force rom-com scored the hat trick of Hollywood misfortune: a frosty reception from critics, a wretched box office performance, and a widely publicised controversy arising from the whitewashing of Emma Stone\'s part-Chinese, part-Hawaiian character.

 has estimated the film\'s financial losses at a wince-inducing $65 million.

Worldwide box office to date: $167 million (up $47 million on budget)

Despite its strong cast and the intriguing indie choice of

\'s Josh Trank as director, the odds were stacked against Fox\'s superhero reboot from the start. You\'d be hard-pushed to name any comic book property less in need of a gritty, realistic reboot than the

, and the film\'s production was riddled with trouble from the start, beginning with Trank\'s alleged "erratic behaviour" on set and ending with Fox making extensive and unsupervised changes to Trank\'s original cut. The result was a muddled and thinly drawn mess that justifiably failed to pull in the crowds.

Worldwide box office to date: $41 million (up $6 million on budget)

Who needs a fictionalised version of this story after

? That was the general question when it was announced Robert Zemeckis would tackle the story of Philippe Petit\'s death-defying high-wire walk between the Twin Towers in 3D, and judging by the film\'s performance, the answer to that question is nobody. It\'s a shame because

justified its use of 3D better than just about any other blockbuster in history, but maybe all that talk of vomit-inducing vertigo just put too many would-be viewers off. 

Worldwide box office to date: $23 million (down $7 million on budget)

Unlike many of the entries on this list, Danny Boyle\'s richly Shakespearean take on the Apple mogul was beloved by critics, and remains a strong Oscar contender for at least Michael Fassbender\'s performance and Aaron Sorkin\'s screenplay.

But as it turned out, the public\'s insatiable appetite for all things Apple did not translate into box office dollars. Despite its strong notices and prestige cast (Fassbender! Winslet! Um… Rogen!), the film has failed to make back its modest production budget.

Worldwide box office to date: $3 million (down $12 million on budget)

Bill Murray is not infallible. This in itself may go down as the most mind-boggling thing we\'ve learned from 2015\'s big-screen flops. Even worse – Bill Murray is capable of being unfunny. This would-be feel-good comedy centered on Murray as a hangdog music manager stranded in Afghanistan, and as of now it\'s ranking fifth in

Worldwide box office to date: $2 million (down $3 million on budget)

When you can\'t make back even half of a $5 million budget in a wide release (over 2000 theatres), something has gone very, very wrong. This glittery bore of a live-action musical saw a small-town girl catapulted into sudden superstardom, and was directed by none other than the man behind

did in the world? It might have cheered Bill Murray up – not only did it come out the same day as

, but it flopped even harder, ending up a spot ahead at number four on that list of worst ever wide openings. The ultimate definition of "an unseen Jem". 

A film\'s "budget" includes only the cost of production, not marketing or distribution. That means that a movie needs to make substantially more than its budget to even break even, let alone turn a profit. That\'s why some of these movies are certified flops despite having a box office figure larger than their budget.

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